Maybe
by stardustinthesky
Summary: Even the strongest people have their moment of weakness and vulnerability.


**Title:** Maybe

**Fandom: **Smallville

**Characters: **Lois Lane, Clark Kent

**Spoilers:** "Lucy," 4x16.

**Notes: **missing scene for the episode. Set shortly after the last scene.

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"Hey."

Lois looked up from where she sat cross-legged on Clark's bed, laptop sitting in front of her. She offered a bright smile that did nothing to fool him. "Hey."

"You okay?"

She nodded curtly. "I'm fine."

Clark leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms across his chest in a gesture that clearly said, _I don't believe you for a second_. He even raised his eyebrows for good measure.

Lois closed her laptop and stared at it for what felt like endless seconds. "Am I a bad person?"

Clark frowned. "Why would you say that?"

"For wanting to have your parents as mine? For telling my father to go to hell and wish that Lucy was never, ever born?" Gone was the confident – or even half-confident – Lois from earlier. She shrugged. "I know I'll hate myself for this, but right now? That's how I feel."

She suddenly looked like a lost little girl – a girl he guessed she'd never really been. Clark suddenly felt the urge to gather her in his arms and hold her close, telling her everything would be alright. But he didn't. It was not how they worked together.

Instead, he just sat at the end of his bed. Or what used to be his bed, he thought dryly.

"No, it doesn't make you a bad person, Lois. It just makes you human."

"That, and a failure."

Clark almost got angry when she said that. Maybe she was a pain in the ass when it came down to it (and mostly to him) but he recognized an amazing woman when he saw one.

"Don't ever say that again."

Lois narrowed her eyes – he said it like it shouldn't be any other way. It was also definitely said in that alpha male voice he took sometimes.

Seeing the expression on Lois's face and sensing that he somehow overstepped the _friends but no one has to know_ line, Clark quickly added, "I mean, you're anything but a failure."

She grimaced. "Yeah right. If it wouldn't have been for your friendship with Lex Luthor, I'd still be sitting next to either you or Chloe in a Smallville High classroom and bored to death. I've been given the chance to have an education at college and look how it turned out."

"Going to college doesn't automatically mean you are a smarter or better person," Clark gently pointed out.

"Maybe," Lois conceded, "but I wasted my chance and screwed up. Now I'm peddling coffee and muffins for your mom. Don't get me wrong – I love your mom but that's not my idea of how to spend the rest of my life. I want _more_."

He looked at her sympathetically, like a teenager who thought they still had all the time in the world to make life-altering decisions. He didn't really understand that desire to have – _and be_ – more. All he had ever wanted to be was normal and the girl sitting across him wanted to be everything but ordinary. He couldn't miss the irony.

"I want to leave my mark in the world, you know?" she said almost uncertainly. When she realized she was nervously twisting her hands, she stopped. When had she become so nerve-wracked in front of Clark Kent? At least, she managed to come out decently earlier.

"I just don't want to be another nameless face," she finished with a sheepish shrug.

He wanted to kiss her.

He wanted to kiss Lois Lane for being so brave when he was nothing but a stupid coward, wanting to hide in a farm in Smallville, Kansas because he was different. Lois, how human and fragile her life was, wanted to face whatever lay ahead of her without fear of what it would be.

Lois didn't want to live with regrets weighing heavy on her mind and he already lived a life full of them.

Maybe it was time to approach life differently. Maybe she could give him a hand at enjoying life a little bit more.

"I'm jealous, you know?" It seemed like tonight was the time to say things he would've normally kept to himself – and it felt good to speak freely, well as freely as he could. Strangely enough, in Lois's presence, the burden of his secret didn't weigh as much.

Lois looked genuinely surprised by his admittance. "Really?" It also seemed to perk her up, which was a good sign.

"Your ability to fall back on your feet from whatever life throws at you. Your ability to move on and start over new. I can't seem to do that." It felt good to talk to a person who didn't want to know all of your secrets or who were your parents.

Lois looked carefully at him for a moment before she replied. "Maybe because you don't want to yet," she offered. "You have to want to move on to actually do it. If you don't, then it's not worth trying because your heart isn't in the right place."

Clark hated to admit it - because, let's face it, they may be friends but it was still Lois Lane, bane of his existence – she might be right.

His lips were tingling and he realized that somehow they'd gotten closer as they talked. Maybe if he leaned in just a little, he could actually…

"Maybe that's not a good idea, Smallville," she said with a soft smile. Her hand on his chest, she gently pushed him away.

He didn't feel disappointed as he might have expected. He even almost felt relieved – they weren't ready for this kind of relationship when they had just admitted being friends.

And after all, he wasn't in love with her. Right?

Still, he needed to apologize. "I'm sorry."

A wry smile crossed her lips. "About what? About the moment of insanity that didn't happen?"

She was _amazing_.

They both looked up when they heard someone knocking on the half-open bedroom door. Jonathan Kent was peering in, wonder etched on his face at seeing the two people who claimed they couldn't stand each other sitting on the bed in their pajamas.

"Don't you have to wake up early tomorrow, Clark?" he said at a loss for words. Yesterday, they seemed to be each other's throat and now they looked like the closest of friends.

Even if he didn't have superpowers, Clark couldn't have missed the snicker coming from Lois, even though she tried to hide it. "We were just talking, dad," he said needlessly. He knew, although Jonathan hid it pretty well, that having a young woman who wasn't a relative living under the same roof than his teenage son was throwing him off the loop. What Clark didn't understand was why his father would think there could be something more between him and Lois than their friendship.

_Okay,_ he thought, _I almost kissed her but that doesn't count, right?_

"Your mom and I are going to bed, we have a pretty long day ahead tomorrow. Don't stay up late you two."

"Don't worry, Mr Kent. I'm going to kick him out soon," Lois smirked while she locked eyes with Clark. He just glared back at her.

"Goodnight, kids."

They were silent for a couple of minutes, Lois studying Clark closely while he seemed interested in the closed laptop before him. Truth was, they knew their moment had passed and it saddened Clark a little. His talks – as few as they were – with Lois always left him wondering about the mystery that was her.

She was very different from the other girls he knew. He was glad she was.

"Clark?"

His hand poised on the doorknob as he stood in the doorway, Clark turned around to see Lois watching him with a serious expression on her face. "Thank you, for everything."

For some odd reason that neither of them could explain, they both knew that Lois meant more than the so-called pep talk they just had. "It's nothing," he tried to shrug it off but she quirked an eyebrow. Maybe it wasn't nothing, after all.

"I know I already told you," Lois began, stopping Clark in his tracks, "but you really _are_ a good friend."

A smile appeared at the corners of his mouth, the kind of smile he seemed to have only for this girl, Lois Lane. "Goodnight, Lois," he said before closing the door behind him.

There was definitely something, Lois thought as she turned off the lights and lay in bed. Mrs Kent once told her that sometimes, there was more than met the eye.

Maybe.

**The End**


End file.
